This is our last day in Talkeetna. Usually on a day like today, I feel like I had a really great time but it’s time to move on. This time, I feel like I’m going to miss Talkeetna. It was raining when we woke. It rained most the day, but cleared up a little bit after dinner. We started our day with a yoga class. This was by the same woman, but instead of being in the yurt, it was in the community center. The yurt was a better place for yoga.

On the Hurricane Turn Train

We didn’t want to hike this afternoon. We had done a good amount of hiking, and the rain was showing no signs of letting up. We decided to ride the Hurricane Turn Train. It offers an old, but not historic train. It has no food and no beverages. It takes 6 hours to go to nowhere and back. And it is a total blast. There are fewer regulations than we expected. Passengers are free to bring lunch or snacks, and as the ticket seller coyly stated, “any beverage you want”. There is a time and a place for cheap red wine and plastic glasses.

Twisted Creek

Of course there’s the beautiful country, and crazy Alaskans, and tourists in the mood to have a good time. But this is also a working train. It is the last flag stop train service in the US. The people that live out in this area have no roads and rely on the train for transportation. It runs daily during the summer. In the winter, it runs once a month Thursday – Sunday. Most residents come in to town Thursday, do their shopping, then return Saturday or Sunday. Today one of our flags was from a couple of hunters at Twisted Creek that couldn’t start a fire, got water logged, and decided to return early. The area was so pretty, most of the passengers decided to get off and look around. The train waited until we were ready to move on.

Mayor of Gold Creek with Wife and Daughter

The train publishes a schedule with names like Chase (12:27), Curry (12:50), and 5 more “towns”. In fact, none of these are towns. Curry is a ghost town. Most of the rest are a house or two. The few that are a village can’t be seen from the tracks. In a couple of places, somebody put up a shed to use as shelter while waiting for the train. There are no stops at any of these places unless somebody flags the train down. Gold Creek normally has a population of 2. Today their daughter is visiting, increasing the population 50%.

View from Baggage Car

There is a sign that passengers are not permitted in the baggage car, but nobody pays it any attention. The train got in trouble because the baggage doors were always open and it wasn’t safe, so they bought some netting and strung that across the doorway. Then they got in trouble because there weren’t any emergency exits. (This with an open baggage door on either side of the car.) The conductor has a coffee pot in the baggage car, and offers anybody a cup for $0.75, honor system.

Hanging in the Baggage Car

The baggage car is more popular with the guys. But just about everybody comes back when there’s something exciting to photograph or see — such as a stretch of river with at least 50 salmon visible. (This is no exaggeration, and I have the photo to prove it.) There was very little other game, because this is hunting season. Those animals aren’t dumb, after all. But if an interesting critter does show up, they stop the train until everybody is happy that they have their pictures. Heck, they’ll even back the train up if that’s what’s needed for a great picture.

Hurricane Gulch

The highlight of the trip is Hurricane Gulch. If the weather is good enough, they stop the train on the bridge and let people take pictures out the baggage car doors. When everybody is happy, the train reverses course to return to Talkeetna.

Tomorrow morning we’ll have our last Road House breakfast, then amble down to Anchorage.